A Little More About Me.
Hi beautiful being,
And welcome to this space. It has taken me a lot of slowing down, nurturing and self-care to get here. Creating this space, in a way that it encapsulates all I hope to do with it, has encouraged me to spend a fair amount of time clarifying what I would like to share with you. My initial response to creating this space was to go in at full force and create it as quickly as possible. I soon realised that what I wanted from this space is for it to be nourishing. For it to be somewhere that nurtures both body and mind. A place for authenticity.
For it to be a soul space, I decided to take a step (many steps) back and slow down. This is something that is intrinsically difficult for me, and in itself has been a massive vessel for personal growth. Slowing down has brought me to this place. A place from which I can share and create with authenticity and creativity. A place where I am sharing from my heart, and not my mind. So for the first post in this little space, I thought I would share a little more about how I got here, and what my intention is.
What brought me here?
Sitting here, writing this, and reflecting on how exactly I got here brings a little smirk to my face, mainly because I pinch myself almost daily. It feels surreal that I stumbled onto this path and have found practices that I am so deeply passionate about, and that have such a profound capacity to create changes for both the individual and the collective.
About three years ago, my life looked very different. I had spent many years extremely disconnected from my body and my emotions. After having been bed bound with Epstein Barr for almost a year in my childhood, I was almost constantly struggling with illness. Once I recovered from the virus, my body was so run down that I spent the next ten years battling health issues. I was taking antibiotics every couple of months, and felt uncomfortable in my own skin. Trapped in a body that never felt quite healthy. I built up so much resentment towards my body that I spent my teen years putting my body through hell. I felt that I had nothing to lose anyway, so I pushed my body way past its breaking point in so many ways. I ate unhealthy, drank most days and smoked a lot.
This disconnection from my body started translating into a disconnection from other parts of myself. I became disconnected from my emotions. I started becoming afraid of feeling. I told myself I was okay, all the time. I was afraid of tapping into the vast landscape of my emotions, because I knew how much was hiding in the depths. I did not feel like I had the tools to be able to feel everything fully without drowning in the darkness.
Moving to London to start my degree became the breaking point. Moving out of my comfort zone pushed me to face everything I had been running away from. I fell into feeling, and it was brutal. I cried so deeply I thought I would never stop. I cried for three days and then decided that feeling sorry for myself would not get me anywhere, so I decided to go to a yoga class. I had started doing yoga when I had Epstein Barr and it had helped heal me then, so maybe it would help me now.
Little did I know I was diving head first into changing my life forever. Within a few weeks, my perspective of life had changed completely. Through incorporating yoga, Ayurveda and meditation into my daily life, I healed my body and mind. I cultivated a connection to my emotions, and started developing my capacity to feel everything deeply. I got to know my mind. My behaviours. My conditioning. I committed to this path and spent the next three years immersing myself in as many holistic healing modalities as possible. Yoga, meditation and sound healing became an integral part of my life.
About a year ago, I stumbled into the world of tantra and sacred sexuality. Here I found the tools to help me heal on a much deeper level than I ever thought possible. I found tools and practices that have helped me start the process of healing the trauma from sexual abuse, from previous relationships, from disrespecting my body. I have connected deeply to my sexuality, and through this have been coming home to myself a little more every day.
Where do I see this work taking me?
Seeing in my own body the power that this work holds, I knew that this work needed to be spread more widely. I believe deeply in the body’s capacity to heal itself, and have seen just how quickly this can happen when given the right tools. One thing that has struck me deeply is that once given the right tools, you do not need anyone but yourself to stay connected to, and heal, your body. My dream is to somehow bring this work to communities where it is needed deeply, where there are no resources on the ground to be help people heal their sexual trauma. Growing up in South Africa, a country in which sexual violence is deeply embedded in the daily lives of many, I have grown up with an awareness of just how important this work can be. At the moment, my dream is to collaboratively create something that can help the masses. Something that can be taught to communities, to children, to grandmothers. A framework for people to take their healing into their own hands. So this little space is the start of that. The beginnings of a community, a framework. A place for me to gather the experience, and create the connections, and the community to hopefully one day share this work with the communities who need it, but cannot access it.
What is this space growing into?
Over the next few months, this space will be growing and evolving. Initially I did not want to launch the website without it being complete, but I realise now that this space will never be complete. It will forever be growing and evolving with me as I continue on this path. Right now, this space is intended to be somewhere that you can come back to, to gather tools that will help you connect to your body, your mind, your heart. Initially I will be sharing these tools through the blog, and hopefully by early next year I will have developed this into an online platform which will be offering personalised yoga and meditation classes, as well as online courses. A place where you can arrive with an intention, a goal, and receive the support and guidance for you to get there. Human contact and support has been largely lost in the digitalised world we live in today, yet I truly believe that in the journey of healing and self-discovery it plays an essential role. For me, having someone support me in this journey has been a huge gift. The road has not been easy, and working on yourself is not love and light all the time. It will be painful and really challenging at times.
So I created this space, as it is something I wish I had at times in the journey. A space with soul. A space that has heart behind it, where reaching out and getting support from someone who cares deeply is possible. A place where you are not just one of many users, but are seen for the beautiful being that you are. So welcome, and thank you for being here.
All love
x
